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Note #7951 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

Turning point
03411
September 29, 2003

Turning point

A missionary letter from Guatemala

by Karla Koll
Presbyterian Church (USA) mission co-worker

QUETZALTENANGO, Guatemala - It's September and the sound of martial music
fills the air. Each year Quetzaltenango marks the anniversary of Central
America's  independence from Spain with a week of parades and a fair.
Marching bands are called "bands of war" in Spanish.

As I watch the young people practicing marching in lockstep I wonder what
they are learning - the joy of making music together or the discipline of
following orders. In Guatemala, as in many other parts of the world,
patriotism or love of one's country is often identified with militarism
rather than the struggle for peace and justice.

This year's celebrations are taking place in the midst of the election
campaign. The twelve candidates vying for the presidency include retired
general Efrain Rios Montt, who as dictator in the early 1980s oversaw
massacres carried out by the army against the civilian population in many
indigenous villages.

The Guatemalan Republican Front (FRG), the political party founded by Rios
Montt, currently controls the presidency and the congress. Though the
constitution prohibits those who participated in past coups from running for
the presidency, the courts voted to allow Rios Montt's candidacy.

Followers of Rios Montt, armed with machetes, held riots in Guatemala City on
July 24 and 25 to demand that he be allowed to run. As of September 17, the
Prensa Libre newspaper reported 98 incidents of violence, including 20
assassinations, in this election period.

Human rights organizations denounce ongoing attacks and intimidation. Seven
years after the peace accords that ended the armed conflict here in
Guatemala, there are those who still want to use violence and intimidation to
rule this country.

A recent book by Edgar Alfredo Balsells Tojo, a judge who served on the
United Nation's Commission on Historical Clarification, describes Guatemalan
society as caught between remembering and forgetting. Balsells Tojo asks if
it is possible for Guatemalans to build a just and peaceful society as long
as war criminals enjoy impunity and power.

Rios Montt's candidacy is forcing discussion of the past, including the role
of the United States in that past.

Some, like the general himself, deny that the massacres happened or claim
that whatever was done was necessary to save the country from communism.
Though the Reagan administration supported Rios Montt while he was in power,
the U.S. embassy here has spoken out against Rios Montt's candidacy.

Meanwhile, the forensic anthropologists, who often receive death threats,
continue their patient labor of unearthing the bones of the men, women, and
children killed by the army.

On a recent Sunday I was attending worship at the Presbyterian church here in
La Esperanza, the community where I live. The church is located next to the
central plaza. As we worshiped inside, the candidates for mayor held rallies,
one after the other, in the plaza. Lots of noise and flash, and few concrete
proposals to improve the life of the residents here.

The current mayor, part of the ladino minority in this mostly K'iche'
village, is a member of the FRG. Yet his family has dominated political life
in this community for decades, long before the FRG was founded. Here, as in
many places, the national party structure overlays local power struggles.

In this electoral context, one of my students offered the following
reflection as part of his final paper for a course on Introduction to the
Bible. Heber Ruiz is an Episcopal priest serving in his hometown of
Totonicapan, a K'iche' community close to Quetzaltenango.

Heber chose as his text the healing of the deaf-mute man by Jesus in Mark
7:31-37. Jesus takes the man aside, puts his fingers in the man's ears, and
orders the man's ears to open and his tongue to be unleashed.

We often see Jesus' miracles as something in the past, said Heber. Yet Jesus
is ordering the ears of the Christian community to be open to listen with
discernment to the speeches of the politicians. Jesus wished the tongues of
his followers to be unleashed to denounce lies and injustices.

The church should not be deaf and mute today, but should assume
responsibility for listening carefully to the world around it, for speaking
out and for working for peace and justice. Good words for Christians in any
context.

The election will be held here in Guatemala on Sunday, November 9. If a
run-off election is needed, it will be held on December 28. As the human
rights organization Amnesty International wrote in a recent letter to the
presidential candidates, these elections offer Guatemala a chance to move
away from its dark past.

Please hold the people of Guatemala in your prayers.

(Information about and correspondence from Presbyterian missionaries around
the world can be found by visiting www.pcusa.org/missionconnections)

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